1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a scintillation data collecting apparatus and a method therefor, to be used with a scintillation camera and a data processor, for efficiently collecting scintillation data produced by the scintillation camera and digitally converting the data for transmission to the data processor such that the latter computes and establishes spatial locations of the scintillations for forming a displayable image, or for storage.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Known in the art is U.S. Pat. No. 4,900,931 which describes a device for locating nuclear radiation and radiation image formation device incorporating such a locating device. The locating device comprises a weighting means made of an arrangement of resistors for supplying analog electrical signals indicative of the position and the energy of a radiation transduced in a scintillation detected by a plurality of photodetectors. The analog electrical signals are then digitally converted by analog-to-digital converters so that a data processor such as a computer can process the signal for determining the location of the radiation.
Since the locating of a scintillation is analogic, the scintillation location accuracy is limited and very dependent on the characteristics of the analog components (resistors). The resolution and uniformity of the locating process also suffer for the same reasons. Furthermore, such a locating device based on a weighted sum of the signals generated by the photodetectors cannot handle more than one radiation event at a time.
Also known in the art is U.S. Pat. No. 4,860,205 which describes a scintillation camera processing circuitry comprising `p` acquisition channels individually amplifying, filtering and sampling the electrical signals generated by `p` photodetectors detecting scintillations produced by a scintillation camera, and a processor for processing the digitally converted electrical signals and determining the location of the scintillations.
The processing of all the electrical signals produced by the photodetectors requires a huge processing power, mostly used to eliminate useless data instead of locating the scintillations with good resolution and uniformity.
Also known in the art is U.S. Pat. No. 4,881,171 which describes a scintillation camera having simplified electronic control, improving slightly the processor circuit of the U.S. Pat. No. 4,860,205 as mentioned earlier.